Thursday, March 12, 2015

A. The purpose of a flower is to attract pollinators to a plant to aid in fertilization so that the plant creates seeds.
Bright colors, strong scents and sweet nectar all work together to
attract birds, bees and other insects to move pollen from one flower to
another. After pollination occurs, the flower develops seeds.

I'm reading journalist Gail Sheehy's memoir right now, Daring: My Passages: A Memoir. I've only read up to 1981, when she is 44, but so far she has been a founding writer of New York
magazine, interviewed all kinds of people from Anwar Sadat to Robert F.
Kennedy, been caught in the crossfire during Bloody Sunday, and written
a bestselling book all while raising a daughter as a single mom. Although the title states that the story is about her
passage, as with most memoirs, it's clear that there were many people
who influenced her, inspired her, and supported her along the way.

Sometimes when we're pursuing our big visions for our work in the world,
we forget that we don't need to do everything on our own, nor should
we. Like flowers, we benefit from "pollination." Other people's ideas,
resources and support help us become who we are meant to be. Likewise,
we can also be pollinators for other people's big visions.

With the first day of spring around the corner (March 20), it's a
good time to set your intentions for the new season and ask yourself:

What kind of "pollinators" do I need to help me with my big vision for my work in the world at this time?

How can I attract them (e.g. take a class, hire a coach, ask someone to be my mentor, get a Big Vision Buddy, explore a business or creative partnership, join a community of practice, ask a friend for help)?

How can I be a pollinator for someone else's big vision?

All photos by me.

Subscribers: I will be moving Have Fun, Do Good over to my website, brittbravo.com. If you would like to receive my posts via email or RSS, the prompts to subscribe are at the bottom of brittbravo.com.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

If you think of yourself as a
creative, visionary, intuitive and/or spiritual person, you might feel
more comfortable with moving towards your big vision by "going with the
flow." It allows you to come up with amazing ideas, have big aha's,
experience incredible synchronicities, create prolifically, and feel
connected to something greater than yourself.

Going
with the flow can also make you feel confused, overwhelmed by
possibilities, disorganized and like you're going around and around in
circles rather than towards your big vision.

Maybe
you're naturally a more structured person. You create lists and plans
and milestones and systems to track how you're spending your time and
money. These tools help you to be organized, productive, grounded and
able to see how you are making progress towards your goals. You feel in
control of your destiny.

But
then something happens and your plans don't unfold the way you'd mapped
them out. Unforeseen events or expenses make it impossible for you to
stick with your schedule, budget, action plan, or time line. When life
doesn't fit within the structure you created, you might feel anxious,
scared, powerless, or stuck.

Whether you naturally lean towards going with the flow, or creating structures, you need to go back and forth between the two to realize your big vision.
As one wise friend described it to me: a river needs banks to guide it
to the ocean.

What feels more comfortable for you? Structure or flow?

Would adding a little more of one or the other help you realize your big vision?

All photos by me.

* I will be moving Have Fun, Do Good over to my website, brittbravo.com. If you would like to receive my posts via email or RSS, the prompts to subscribe are at the bottom of brittbravo.com.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Many of us feel time-crunched. Like we need more spaciousness in our
lives for all kinds of things, including working on our big vision.

Now sometimes, "I don't have enough time," can really mean, "I'm
exhausted and need more sleep," or "I'm afraid," or "I don't want to
fail," or "I don't want to have to make a decision and focus on one
project." But when time is truly the issue, we have two choices:

1. Eliminate some of the things that have been taking up the space we need to create.

2. Adapt to the space we have and embrace our limits.

For example, let's say you were hoping to sit down at the beginning
of this year and map out a BIG plan for your life. You were going to
make a 1-year plan, a 5-year plan and a 10-year plan. You were going to
create timelines and to-lists and "figure it all out."

But now
it's already February. And your days are filled with work and family and
friends and laundry and commuting and, oh yeah, you had the flu for a
week in January, which threw everything out of whack, and the kids have
spring break in March, and you have a wedding to go to in April (what
will you wear?) and you keep getting those postcards reminding you to go
to the dentist. It doesn't seem like things are going to slow down any
time soon. Aaaargh!

If we can't eliminate any commitments from our lives right now, we have to adapt and embrace our limits.
We need to use the time we have to do what we can rather than waiting
for "someday" in the future when we think we will have luxuriously long
free chunks of time. That someday may come, or it may not. In the
meantime, we have to work with what we have, even if it's only an hour a
week.

"[N]othing
stifles inventiveness and artistry more brutally, than too much
freedom, too much wiggle room for the imagination. Instead, they argue,
the real source of productive creativity may lie in art's supposed
bugaboos: rules, structure, even the occasional editor or two."

"It’s
hard to get people to focus on plan B when plan A is working so well.
Now we are in a place where lots of 'plans As' are no longer working.
Being forced to reevaluate is allowing us to see this connection between
limitations and creativity that has always been right in front of us."

Someday
may never come, but today always will, so let's try to see the
restrictions on our time as opportunities and love our limits!

Saturday, January 31, 2015

When we are pursuing our big visions there will be times when our path becomes obscured.

In Cheryl Strayed's, Wild,
which I just finished reading, most of the time she knows where she is
on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and where she wants to be at the end of
her 1,100 mile hike. But sometimes, like when she hikes through snow,
she doesn't know if she is on the PCT, or if she is lost. She has to
consult her guidebook, look for signs, ask for help from strangers, and
trust her instincts to find her way.

When I graduated from college, I really didn't know what I wanted to
do next. I had a degree in sociology that I loved studying, but didn't
point me in a particular direction. My only guidepost came from a
friend's boyfriend who had graduated the year before who said, "If you
don't know the kind of work you want to do, or where you want to live,
or who you want to be, go where you know people because it's important
to have friends around when you're figuring all of that out."

I
took his advice to heart. Most of my friends had moved to either New
York City or the Bay Area. I needed to decide between the two, but again
I was at a loss. This time, it was my who Dad gave me some good advice.
He said, "What color do you see when you think of each place?" I closed
my eyes and thought about New York. All I could see was black and
white.

Then I thought about San Francisco. I saw pinks and yellows and lots of
color. I decide to move to San Francisco and have lived in the Bay Area
for almost 25 years!

I think when we're in unknown, directionless, lost, or "blank slate"
periods of our lives it's important to: 1. surround ourselves with
people who care about us, and 2. listen to the less linear parts of
ourselves that know things through feelings, images and intuitions.

Monday, January 26, 2015

At the beginning of this year, 47% of Americans made a New Year’s resolution. Only 8% of us will keep it. But maybe that isn’t a bad thing as long as we:

Take the time to reflect on why we didn’t keep it.

Look at it as one “experiment” in a long process.

Last weekend, I saw two movies, Birdman and Particle Fever, that portrayed very different attitudes towards success and failure. Without giving too much away about each movie, in Birdman, the former star of a comic book hero movie franchise tries desperately to regain his former success by writing, directing and starring in his adaptation of a Raymond Carver play.

He tells his daughter, “I’m trying to do something important,” to which she responds, “You’re doing this because you’re scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don’t matter.” Throughout the film, it feels like he is running from his failures in the past, and possible failures in the future.

Particle Fever is a documentary about the launch of the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs Boson (aka the “god particle”), which some of the scientists interviewed have been working on for 20+ years! I was struck by how different the attitude, as expressed by one of the physicists in the film, Savas Dimopoulos, was to failure:

“Jumping from failure to failure with undiminished enthusiasm is the big secret to success.”

Failure seemed to be an accepted part of the process, and a looooooooong process at that. As another physicist, Monica Dunford, says in a voice-over during footage of her going for a run:

“When you’re dealing with something that’s a long term project . . . you can’t think about the end. Ever. If you start off a marathon thinking ‘I can’t wait to get to the finish line. I’m going to have my data,’ or ‘I’m going to have my crispy french fries at the finish line’ or whatever motives you. If you start thinking that at mile one and it’s like ten minutes into the race and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Wow, I’m only at mile one, I’ve got 22.5 miles to go.’ If you’re thinking like that at the start, then you’re done. Mentally you are done. This is what doing discovery physics means. This is what discovery means.”

I’ve thought about both films a lot recently and wondered: As I make future plans in reaction to past failures, am I being more like the actor in Birdman, or like the scientists in Particle Fever?

I have to admit that I have been being more like the actor in Birdman, running from failures and taking desperate actions in the hopes that future success would bury the memory of my failures, rather than embracing life as a long experiment that includes successes and failures.

So, I’m hoping to spend some time at the end of this month reflecting on some of my most recent failures with a “scientific method” type of lense:

Question: What question about my life was I trying to answer?

Hypothesis: What did I think the solution would be?

Experiment: What actions did I take to try to make happen what I wanted to happen?

Data: What are the facts about what happened?

Observations: What other things did I notice and feel about what happened?

Conclusion: Did I achieve my hoped for solution? Why or why not? If I didn’t, what did I learn and what will I do differently next time?

As we wind down the first month of 2015:

What hasn’t turned out the way you expected?

What will be your next experiment?

* I will be moving Have Fun, Do Good over to my website, brittbravo.com. If you would like to receive my posts via email or RSS, the prompts to subscribe are at the bottom of brittbravo.com.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

"Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way." ~Twyla Tharp, author of The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

Twenty plus years ago, I went through a graduate program to earn an M.A. in Creation Spirituality. The premise of much of the curriculum was that if you believe in some kind of greater creative force, then you will be your truest self and closest to that source when you are being creative.

One of the daily practices we were encouraged to foster during the program was art-as-meditation, to do something creative each day (e.g. make music, sing, dance, write, paint, draw, take photos, mold clay) without focusing on the product, only the process. I was pretty regular with my art-as-meditation practice while I was in school and for a little while afterwards, and then it fell away.

Lately, I've found myself focusing Focusing FOCUSING on getting from A to Z in certain areas of my life and feeling extremely frustrated when either 1. things go from A to J to F, or 2. it seems like nothing is happening. As I've continued with pushing my metaphorical boulder up a hill, the idea of an art-as-meditation practice keeps popping up.

I even recommended it to someone else. Classic. It's so much easier to give other people the advice you need to take yourself! Clearly, I need to spend a little time each day being comfortable with the uncertainty, lack of linear thinking and chaos that being creative can bring.

If you're interested in trying an art-as-meditation practice, it's fairly simple to do:

Set aside time each day (5-20 minutes).

During that time, create in whatever way moves you without focusing on the product, just the process.

Don't judge what you create.

Social media didn't exist 20 years ago, so I would add, refrain from sharing what you create on social media so that you don't set yourself up to be judged by someone else either.

The process is easy. The challenge is committing to make space each day for the unknown.

Friday, January 02, 2015

Do you want to re-energize your blog and blogging practice, or rediscover the ♥ of your blog?

I’ll be offering this ever popular e-course January 20-February 17,
2015. During the course, you’ll play with fun assignments on a private
blog with your fellow juicy bloggers.

“The best part of it all is that it is justsomuchfun!” ~ Juicy Blogging E-Course student

The course consists of three kinds of fun-work:
• Reflection questions to refine your blog’s purpose
• Connection assignments to build community and traffic
• Creative and juicy blog post prompts to get you writing

While working at your own pace, this course will help you:
• Discover what you love to write about
• Create a big ‘ole list of juicy blog post topics
• Learn tricks and tips for building community and traffic
• Design a blogging schedule that works for you
• Connect with other juicy bloggers

How it works

Each week, you’ll receive an email with a link to the week’s lessons on a private blog.

You can work privately on your own, or interact with your fellow
students in the comments of each lesson’s posts by asking questions,
sharing reflections, and posting links to your blog posts for feedback.

I individually answer all of the questions you post in the comments of each week’s lessons.

Friday, October 24, 2014

While visiting New Mexico this summer, I raised my phone to take a photo of some pink flowers against a blue sky when this happened:

This hummingbird flew right into my frame and posed for a long time (at least by hummingbird standards). It was a magical moment, especially because hummingbirds have always been an "auspicious symbol" for me.

Friday, October 17, 2014

As I was walking to work one day this week, I saw this cute Corgi (pictured above) on the street. At first he was shy. He watched me with half of his face hidden behind the wall. But as I walked closer, his excitement overwhelmed him. He ran out of hiding to say hello and invited me to pet him (so soft!).

Sometimes that's how we are with our Big Visions. Shy at first. Testing the waters. Not wanting to make a commitment. But here's the important part. The excitement. When we get SO excited about something that we just HAVE to do it, or learn more about it, or share it with others, we need to let go and run towards it.

When you feel pulled towards something that makes you go "Oooooooh!" Move towards it. Get closer. See what it's all about. For example, I often take photos on my walks to and from work.

A color will catch my eye and compel me to take out my phone and look closer.

Sometimes I decide that it doesn't look as great as I thought it would, and I keep walking.

Other times, halfway through editing it on Instagram, I'll decide that the image or moment isn't drawing me in anymore. I discard the edits and delete the photo.

But a lot of the time, if I stop to photograph something I feel inexplicably drawn to, the photo turns out even more beautifully than I could have imagined. And that makes me happy. Very happy.

Big Vision experiment: Move towards what excites you, attracts you, or draws you in this week.

All photos by me.

* I will be moving Have Fun, Do Good over to my website, brittbravo.com. If you would like to receive my posts via email or RSS, the prompts to subscribe are at the bottom of brittbravo.com.

Friday, October 10, 2014

"The Death of a tree is the birth of a log or a snag [a standing dead or dying tree]. Dead trees are essential to the health of the forest and they are the basis of its astonishing productivity. Fallen trees are a substantial reservoir of organic matter and water that other plants and trees depend on. . .

As a tree slowly decays, it becomes a nursery for plants. It may take 400 years or longer to become incorporated into the forest floor. During this time, a variety of shrubs and trees have the opportunity to develop part or all of their root systems within the decaying wood."

A couple weeks ago, I went on vacation along The North Coast or "Redwood Coast" of California. The hubs and I spent a lot of time hiking, and did some camping among the giant redwood trees. It was wonderful.

I knew in theory that when things died they provided nutrients for living things. "Cycle of life," "when one door closes, another opens," and all that, but there was something about seeing so many fallen and standing dead trees, and the life that grew out of them that amazed me.

Sometimes when we are pursuing our Big Vision, things die (goals, habits, identities, ways of being, jobs, where we live, relationships). The destruction can happen by our hand, or by others', deliberately, or against our will. Reality is, death, destruction and challenges will happen. On the up side, the growth of new things and "nutrients" for existing things can come out of those deaths.

One of the things that helps redwoods survive strong winds and floods is to intertwine roots with other redwoods, so when a storm rolls into your Big Vision, or your life in general, find someone to intertwine your roots with and hold on!

All photos by me and the hubs.

* I will be moving Have Fun, Do Good over to my website, brittbravo.com. If you would like to receive my posts via email or RSS, the prompts to subscribe are at the bottom of brittbravo.com.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

A
friend who is between jobs recently asked me, "Is there one piece of
advice you would give to a creative person when they are looking for their
next job, or project?"

I responded, "Notice what 'sparkles' for you."

I
think of "sparkles" as things that make you smile, makes time fly,
or that you all of a sudden become very curious about (even if you don't
understand why).

If you are a "creative" type,
you already know that most creative projects don't usually happen in a
straight line: A to Z. They often begin with something small: a craving for an ingredient, a phrase you can't stop
thinking about, an attraction to a color, or a problem that
piques your interest. My experience has been that if you follow that
sparkle, and the next one and the next one, they will take you on a curvy route to your next big vision.

If you're in the middle
of a transition and trying to figure out what to do next, follow you sparkles, even if they don't make logical sense. They will light the way.

Try this:

Over the next three days, notice what "sparkles" for you:

What brings you joy?

What are you attracted to?

What are you curious about?

Capture your "sparkles" in your journal, in a conversation with a friend, or with photos.

Are there any themes that run through all of your sparkles?

How can you bring more of what sparkles into your life?

* I will be moving Have Fun, Do Good over to my website, brittbravo.com. If you would like to receive my posts via email or RSS, the prompts to subscribe are at the bottom of brittbravo.com.

Monday, September 15, 2014

About a year and a half ago my friend Heather and I decided to try the Oprah and Deepak 21-Day Meditation Experience. To make sure we completed it, we texted each other right after we meditated. There were many mornings when I would "forget" to meditate (isn't it funny how our minds do that when we're resisting something?), and her text would prompt me to do it.

It worked so well that even when the 21 days were over, we continued to text each other after we meditated. A year and half later, our meditation practices certainly aren't perfect, but they're so much a part of our lives that we no longer text about it. We've moved on to new projects!

Heather is working on finishing her book, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of regular blogging, so now we text each when we're going to write, and when we finish. Once again, it's working! I'm posting here for the first time in almost two months.

It's such a simple process, but one that has made a huge difference in our lives.

Below are a few tips for texting with your Big Vision Buddy:

Pick a Big Vision Buddy who is also working on a project, or habit. It's more fun for the support to be two-way, rather than one-way.

Also, your Buddy should be someone who you aren't competitive with, or who isn't emotionally invested in the completion of your goal, or project.

Nudge don't judge. If your Buddy hasn't texted you in a while, gently ask them how things are going, and how you can support their getting back on track.

Big Vision to-dos for you:

Pick a project, or habit you would like to work on this week, this month, or this fall.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Today is my day for letting go of things to make space for something new.

I just told my VegCookbook Club that I'm stepping down as its organizer, and now I'm letting go of the Big Vision Podcast. It has been REALLY hard to let this go, but after not posting an interview for a year, I know that it is time.

I started the Big Vision Podcast in 2006 about six months after starting Have Fun, Do Good. When I told my husband that I wanted to interview social changemakers for my blog, he suggested that I start a podcast. He had the audio equipment to help me with the recording and iTunes had recently added support for podcasts.

And so began seven years of talking to some pretty amazing Big Visionaries. What an incredible experience. Every single one of these people inspired me in some way, and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to spend time with them.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll pay for the podcast's hosting, so if you've been meaning to go back and download any of the old interviews, now is the time. You can listen on iTunes and on the podcast's home page. I'll also embed a podcast player on the bottom of this post. If you click on Menu, you should be able to access all the shows from there as well.

I've listed the interviewees by year below. I didn't put their organizations or titles because many people's jobs have changed. Sadly, one of the Big Visionaries I interviewed, Priya Haji, passed away recently.

I want to thank all of you who have been listeners over the years, and of course thank all of the people I interviewed for making the time to talk with me about their big vision.

Saturday, June 07, 2014

A few years ago, I had a vivid dream that I went into a dark therapist's office to meet with my client, Cameron Diaz. She wanted to know the secret to happiness, so I told her:

Cook

Connect

Care

Color

I've heard that all of the characters in your dreams are aspects of yourself, so I've thought a lot over the years about my advice to the "Cameron Diaz" aspect of myself.

Cooking, connecting and caring made sense, but I didn't fully understand the color part until last week when I joined Andrea Sher's e-course: Collecting Color: 30 Days of Photo Joy. I'm having so much fun!

Each day, for thirty days, she sends out a photo prompt (e.g. take a photo of a flower, color at your feet, a splash of red). I take 1-5 photos based on the prompt, and upload them to the course's Flickr group. It's self-paced, so I can do as little, or as much as I want, whenever I want.

Walking around each day on a "treasure hunt" for color has helped me to see beauty in the everyday. I took all of the photos in this post walking on the not always pretty streets of Oakland. When I look at them, I feel like I live in a magical land full of luscious flowers, yellow brick roads, and luminous symbols.